Odd how during the health care reform town hall meetings of 2009, the tea baggers could scream, overshout, carry guns, make demands, cause a ruckus, and it was considered "freedom of speech". But if a liberal asks a question or two, she gets arrested.

Batcrap wingnuts like West hate us because we ask questions they don't dare answer truthfully because it would sink them. Lying to cops was a handy way to get her outta there.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp's quarterly profit rose a better-than-expected 69 percent as the world's largest publicly traded oil company benefited from higher crude prices and better margins for its refineries. The Irving, Texas, company reported a first-quarter profit of $10.65 billion, or $2.14 per share, up from $6.3 billion, or $1.33 per share, a year earlier. [...]

Politically, there will never be a better time than right now to end the subsidy of Big Oil.

Even Republicans should be seriously contemplating ending the subsidies at this point, because public opinion will only further tilt in favor of doing so as each oil corporation reports their quarterly profits one-by-one. And lets face it, it's not as if Big Oil will divorce the Republican Party even if they do vote to end the subsidies. Who else could they turn to in the effort to legislatively-deny climate change and carry on the fight to defund the EPA?

Shell also posted a 22% increase in profits, and BP posted a 17% increase in profits.

And in a related story: House Speaker John Boner (R-OH) will not hold a vote on legislation ending oil subsidies, despite expressing openness earlier this week to ending the tax breaks oil companies receive. His spokesman walked back his earlier comments, saying "raising taxes" was off the table. Oil companies receive roughly $4 billion in subsidies each year.

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Massachusetts suffers through Romneycare - JM Ashby

Massachusetts, the home of "Romneycare," which as Paul Krugman explains is basically the same thing as "Obamacare," has posted a quarterly-growth rate which is double that of the rest of the country.

(Reuters) - Massachusetts' economic growth surged ahead of the overall United States in the first quarter of 2011, buoyed by the state's technology-intensive industries, a report said on Thursday.

The real gross state product grew at an annual estimated rate of 4.2 percent, more than double the national economy's expansion of 1.8 percent, said the study by MassBenchmarks, a quarterly journal published by the University of Massachusetts.

Even though Massachusetts' economy is doing quite well despite the crushing girth of what most Republicans would describe as "socialized medicine," Mitt Romney will be forced to run away from his own healthcare law if he wants to win the Republican nomination for president because making healthcare more affordable, and providing healthcare for people who cannot provide for themselves, is for socialists and commies.

Anything I could say to sum up just how stupid it is to be unable to campaign based on genuine, functioning, policy achievements feels inadequate. And as long as Republicans, as a party, insist that they only champion policies which have chronically proven to be complete failures, it's hard to see them ever regaining the Whitehouse.

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155 tornadoes touched down yesterday. Y'know, as compared to the 163 average for the entire month of April. But, hey, climate change is less believable than Sarah Palin's command of the English language.

Carl Seel Arizona Legislator and Author of Birther Bill Under Official Recall

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The Birthers have switched over to President Carebear's academic records, and of course, it is just another racist dog-whistle for How did the black guy get into Columbia and Harvard? (Political Ticker)

Haha, oh Barack. How can you expect us to believe that your .pdf birth certificate is genuine? Your wife has three hands. [The Hartford Courant via Reddit]

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The church where the Obama's attended Easter Sunday services becomes the target of threats and right-wing hatred. "Shiloh Baptist Church in the District said it has received threatening phone calls and e-mails after an Easter visit from President Obama and a conservative television commentator's subsequent playing of a videotape in which the pastor said that those espousing racial prejudice do so "under the protective cover of talk radio." ... The Rev. Wallace Charles Smith said the church has received more than 100 threats since Fox News channel's Sean Hannity aired a tape Monday of a speech Smith gave in January 2010 at Eastern University in Saint Davids, Pa. ... "We received a fax that had the image of a monkey with a target across is face," Smith said. "My secretary has received telephone calls that have been so vulgar until she has had to hang up.""

Tennessee Legislature Making It Illegal To Mention To Kids Gay People Exist

On Monday, Tennessee's state House passed a bill to ban local laws that protect gay citizens from discrimination after the cesspool that is Nashville decided it would start considering gay people human beings of all things. (GAYS ARE A TYPE OF PLANT LIFE, NASHVILLE.) This is a fairly proactive approach to quelling equality before it becomes an epidemic in the South, but the Tennessee state Senate may have done one better: It passed a law that would make it illegal for teachers below the high school level to acknowledge that anybody in the world is anything but 100% hetero. Did you hear that, gay Tennessee children? The government of your state says you don't exist and wants to make sure that if you think you are gay, you also think you are the only gay person in the world! That should be good for your emotional health.

The bill supporters, including sponsor Sen. Stacey Campfield, a Republican from Knoxville who unsuccessfully pushed the same bill in the House for six years before being elected to the Senate, say the bill is "neutral" and simply leaves it up to families to decide when it is an appropriate time to talk to their kids about sexuality.

It's very neutral! Schoolteachers will teach children that every adult in the world has a spouse of the opposite sex or will eventually get one, imply that every important dude in history and culture loved sticking their dicks into ladies, and then if children just happen to start to think what is being presented to them by their teacher isn't entirely factual, they can ask their parents and hope they know/will tell them the truth.

And then nobody will ever be gay in Tennessee again, the end.

Our schools already lie to children about Santa Claus and other things, so why let in the Enlightenment and start trying to build trust with students now? As they always taught us in school, "Lying is the best policy."

Crap merchant Wal-Mart has watched shoppers flee its grim aisles in increasing numbers for the past two years — seven straight quarters of declining sales. So what happened to this glorious monument of American Exceptionalism in the late 20th Century found on the honky-tonk mini-mall edge of every Nowhere Town, USA? Why did working/lower/starving class people stop cashing their paychecks in exchange for $24.99 Chinese DVD players and frozen slabs of factory-murdered meat? Oh right, the global financial collapse/Great Recession/End of the American Economic System of attacks on labor/redistribution of wealth to the richest 0.01%. That's what happened. There are no paychecks anymore.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Wal-Mart's core shoppers are running out of money much faster than a year ago due to rising gasoline prices, and the retail giant is worried, CEO Mike Duke said Wednesday.

Wal-Mart shoppers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, typically shop in bulk at the beginning of the month when their paychecks come in. Lately, they're "running out of money" at a faster clip, he said.